The cajas are furiously preparing stock-market listings and sounding out private investors ahead of a government-set September deadline, in an attempt to avoid last-resort measures, such as capital injections from taxpayers.

Photo: EFE/ Zuma Press More than half of the total property-insurance exposure along the North Carolina coast belongs to the state's last-resort insurer, the Beach Plan, which was created in 1969 to cover barrier islands near the Atlantic Ocean.